The Hero’s Met Collection
My One Second with Muhammad Ali
This man's eyes were way faster than his hands.
You know the story behind the man, three-times champion, and the believer.
“Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee. I am the Greatest!”
I was eighteen, playing security, trying to keep the crowd back I was pushed forward into the side of the Rolls Royce convertible.
I looked down at where my foot was. The rear tire was going to roll right over it.
“That gonna hurt!”
I still hear it in my mind.
I looked up, and two, three feet away, a smiling Mohammed Ali looked into my eyes. It wasn’t the entertainer but the fighter's smile.
His eyes were rueful and teasing. He’d already seen what was going to happen.
“the tire rolled slowly over my boot”
I was looking squarely at him right in the face, no more than four feet away. I grimaced as the tire rolled slowly over my boot. Then I laughed when the pain hit, and the tears welled in my eyes.
His face broke into joy for a split second, and Mohammed Ali, the Rolls Royce convertible, and the show drove on.
A second later, he whipped around, and his arm shot up to the sky, a salute for me (maybe) or the crowd.
I hobbled away with squashed toes, a living memory and now an occasionally painful one.
I smile in fond memory of a rebel, a hero, and a champion of life.
My one second with Mohammed Ali!
Vale my hero!
